Misc Africa

Nelson Mandela statue in front of the Union buildings (government) in Pretoria

Great beaches

Caves

The protea is the national flower

Many vineyards

Great cities

Vivid cities

Colorful townships

Crazy taxi drivers, the most popular form of transportation . . .

One of our drivers called them rolling coffins as they are cheap and dangerous

We often saw people riding in the back of pickups on the highway

Many towns and roads have Afrikaan names and there are a lot of “fonteins” or fountains . . .

but many are being renamed by the new government.

The Gautrain, the high speed train out of Johannesburg

Often you see cattle crossing the road and wandering right across the freeway!

Ostriches are farmed in South Africa

Logging is big business as well.

Fruit trees and bananas are all over the North Cape.

In South Africa, you get your gas pumped for you.

Instead of taking your phone to the table, it can be charged during your meal.

I got a big kick out of the newspaper headlines.

Yes, it’s even here in South Africa.

Coke is huge in SA

Coke sponsors little shops, restaurants everywhere you look

They even sponsor schools

Subliminal advertising works

We were dismayed by all the security – walls, electrified wires, guards in all the cities and towns.

My fav dessert – Malva pudding

Kids walked to school, often very far

Uniforms are mandatory and are proudly worn, clean and pressed.

Women who carried packages this way never ceased to amaze me.

And I loved the way they carried their babies, allowing their hands to be free.

Wherever you went, these guys “helped” you park and then expected money.

The prices seem high with the rand. The dollar conversion is about $11.

South Africans are crazy about their soccer

For the World Cup, they built several interesting stadiums depicting their culture. This one in Durban has shark teeth on the roof.

The stadium in Johannesburg, depicts a calabash, the cup used by native Zulus to drink homemade beer. It holds 97,000 people!

I didn’t know that…

I always thought that Afrikaans was the African language. I never realized its one of eleven official languages in South Africa, descended mainly from the white Dutch settlers and mixed with some Bantu, Khoisan, Portugese and Malay. Much of the South African signage is written in English and Afrikaans.

It seems that everyone in South Africa speeds! I went the speed limit because I didn’t want to risk getting stopped. Many people we talked with said the traffic police weren’t very honest, stopped motorists unnecessarily and took bribes. We also heard that no one pays e-tolls!

Johannesburg has the third best drinking water in the world.

South Africa is the only country that imprisoned three major world leaders at some point in their history: Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi and of course, Nelson Mandela.

We met many people and everyone had strong opinions about what has happened and what is happening (both socially and politically) in South Africa. In response, I like this quote from Nelson Mandela, “If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.”

Finally, I didn’t know that we would come to enjoy South Africa as much as we did — the beauty of nature, the fascinating cities, the history, the conflicts, the friendliness of its people. They say Africa gets in your blood and I tend to agree. It touches you. It makes you think. There are so many new places I want to go but one place that I want to come back to is South Africa.